


Joy's Journey

by Loco_Bnana



Category: Inside Out (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 04:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4507149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loco_Bnana/pseuds/Loco_Bnana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riley's starting to grow up and become a mature woman, which of course means that the emotions have to keep up, but Joy still has hope for something she wants to hold on to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joy's Journey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sabishiita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabishiita/gifts).



It had been a very long day at headquarters. Riley was now 17, and had just broken off a longstanding relationship. Joy wasn’t so sure she’d make it, but thanks to Sadness signalling riley’s friends, the day ended with at least a few happy memories. The small team of emotions congratulated each other on the way they handled the day, and celebrated the small moment where Riley’s friend had shown up at her house with a pint of ice cream and scissors. Riley went to sleep remembering the feeling she had about cutting out the boys face from all of their pictures.

As she closed her eyes and went into REM, most of the emotions went to bed as well. “You got this Sadness?”

“Yeah, I’ve got this. Riley had a long day, she might need to cry it out.” Sadness smiled as Joy ruffled Sadness’ hair.

“Atta girl. I’ll see you bright and early for another good day.” Joy joined the rest of the group as Sadness brought up a chair. The dream had been the usual nonsense that Sadness didn’t have much interest in. After about half an hour of dream boys pining for Riley now that she was single, Sadness slumped out of her chair and meandered to the manuals.

Occasionally a new manual would unsurface. Rarely did anyone, including Sadness, notice. However, anything had to be better than a random boy from Canada throwing rose petals in Riley’s way. Sadness moved away the binders titled “Long Term Memory Recall Vol. 1-4” and “Guide to Dreams and interpreting them” and found one that she had never seen before. The book was thick, taking up the entire 3 inches the binder gave it, and the table of contents seemed to go on for 20 pages. The title was missing, which made Sadness even more curious. The small blue emotion brought the book back to the control panel so she could occasionally check on Riley’s dreams while she read.

When morning came, Joy flew down the steps and ran straight up to Sadness.

“So…? How were the dreams?!” Joy bounced up and down next to her.

“Did we burn that cheater’s face off? Oh, I know! We threw him in a dumpster full of spiders!” Anger was grinning at his own dreams he had.

Disgust rolled her eyes. “We should of ruined him last night and let the whole school know who he is.” Fear nodded his head in solemn agreement.

“The dreams were okay,” Sadness said. She was half way through the manual that she had started last night, and didn’t even bother to look up. “Joy, I need to tell you something.”

Joy looked concerned. Sadness and her had been getting along much better as of late. What could sadness want to tell her and not the others?

Fear was about to enquire when the entire group’s situation was interrupted by the buzzing of a little screen next to Riley.

“Ugh. It’s a text from loser face,” Disgust strode confidently to the controls while Fear and Anger walked up behind her. Joy’s first reaction was to intercede, but was stopped when Sadness tugged on her dress.

Disgust turned around and looked at the pair. “Don’t freak, we’ve got this covered.” Disgust turned back to the console and stopped Fear or Anger from texting Riley’s Ex back.

Sadness took Joy’s hand and lead her away from the group. Joy was still distracted with what was happening on the big screen. “Sadness does this have to happen now? We’ve got a big day ahead, we have to show the school that we can bounce back from stuff like this!”

“Joy, look!” Sadness pointed to a part of the manual she had outlined. Joy quickly skimmed through it, at first confused. She furrowed her brow and looked at Sadness. Sadness nodded once at Joy, and Joy read the clip of the manual again.

“Wait… This means…” Joy slowly looked up from the papers in front of her and down into the deep blue eyes looking up at hers. “Do you really think it could work?”

“It can if we find the right memory,” Sadness turned back in the manual to where she was reading. Joy leapt up and started to squeal. “Joy, wait, there’s a lot of conditions that have to be met. Read here,” Sadness pointed to one of the parts on the page she was currently reading.

Joy’s excited demeanor drooped as she read the page. “So what you’re saying is…”

Sadness set the manual aside. “We can still do it, but it’s going to be a very long time, otherwise the attempt could be ruined forever. I’ll take your dream duty tonight and finish reading the manual.”

Joy considered this for a moment, there wasn’t a downside to waiting to attempt what Sadness was suggesting, other than… well… waiting. Waiting wasn’t something Joy did well.

Joy’s internal debate was abruptly stopped when Fear yelled for her.

“Joy! A friend showed up for breakfast, and mom made monkey pancakes! You really should be at the control!” Disgust backed away from the controls, as did Fear and Anger. Sadness looked up at Joy as Joy looked from the control, to the manual, back to Sadness.

“Okay,” Joy started, “but you’ll wake me up as soon as you finish, right?”

“Right,” Sadness said as the two walked back to the controls. All 5 emotions took their place at the console, and got Riley through another tough day.

As long as the day was, Sadness surprisingly hardly had to take the controls compared to what most would think. In fact, the day was pretty evenly split between the five emotions, and by the end of it the entire group was exhausted. The entire group that is, except for Anger, who still wanted to go to the Ex’s house and release a box of stinkbugs under his bed.

When Sadness stayed behind at the console, Disgust confronted her. “Who would willingly take dream duty? Isn’t that your thing, Joy?”

Joy and Sadness quickly looked at each other, Joy’s look said to Sadness “She’s onto us, do something!”

Sadness started sniffling, and rubbed her eye on her sweater sleeve.

“Oh, oh God! What did I say?” Disgust rushed over to Sadness.

“Good going, Disgust, you made her cry again,” Fear said as he turned back to go to bed.

“Why are you crying?!” Anger exclaimed more confused than anything.

“Yeah, Sadness,” Joy said skeptically, “Why ARE you crying?”

“I… I…” Sadness blubbered and snuffled “I just want to see him again!” Sadness fell face first onto the floor and wailed.

“Ugh. It is far too late to deal with this. I’m going to bed.” Disgust curtly walked away from the growing puddle, Fear and Anger following.

Joy helped Sadness up. “Wow, that was some really good acting. Maybe we should get Riley into drama classes.”

“Thanks,” Sadness wiped her face off one more time and smiled at Joy.

“You sure you’re gonna be good to stay up all night again?”

“I’ll be fine. Riley’s just been dreaming about other dream boys.”

“Well… Okay if you say so.” Joy yawned and started to walk to where the rest of the emotions were sleeping. “Don’t forget to wake me up when you’re done.”

Sadness absently waved Joy away as she opened the unnamed manual again.

* * *

“Joy, Joy wake up!” Sadness shook Joy’s shoulder gently.

“Huh wha?” Joy suddenly sat up, though her eyes were barely open.

“Joy I figured it out. Here’s the conditions. If we don’t do it right Riley will deny the thought completely and the idea will be ruined forever.”

Joy quickly rubbed her eyes and quickly flipped through all the pages of the manual that were dog-eared by tiny blue hands. She was temporarily brought down by an entire page where the text was red instead of black, but nodded as she closed upon the last page of the manual. “Okay, okay, we can do this. I’ll go look for the memory, we’ve still got-” Joy checked her watch. “2 hours until she’s due to wake up.” Joy handed the manual back to Sadness and stood up, straightening her dress.

“Joy are you sure? There’s a lot of memories to go through.” Sadness followed as Joy nearly glided to the main memory tube.

“If I don’t start I’ll never find it! I’ll be back when she wakes up!” Joy brought down the memory tube and climbed in.

* * *

It was about two weeks of Joy waking in the middle of the night and sneaking behind Fear, Anger, and Disgust to go to long term and find a memory perfect for what she wanted to try. If the exhaustion ever caught up to her during the day, she’d just start humming the tune she was always thinking of.

Occasionally Fear thought he recognized the tune, but any time he started to try to place words to Joy’s humming, she’d suddenly switch to whatever pop song Riley had last listened to.

When finally Joy found the perfect memory, She came through the memory tube spinning. Luckily, Sadness was the one on dream duty.

“Sadness! I found it! Oh Sadness this makes me so happy!” Joy picked Sadness up and spun around again. “When do you think we’ll have the opportunity?” Joy asked, running in place.

“It might not be for a long time, Joy, I’ve been rereading the conditions, and in some cases it could take decades.” Sadness glanced at the screen as Riley’s dream showed her getting another text from loser-face. Riley was still having problems, apparently.

Joy groaned, and placed the faded yellow memory behind the other memories she kept on hand for when Riley needed to be reminded of something. Most of the emotions kept their favorite memories there, so it was a nice mix of colors. Joy picked it up and did her best to shine the memory up, but it was still pretty faded.

“We’re going to have to tell them, Joy. They’re going to ask questions.”

Joy sighed and watched the memory again, and again. “Okay, we’ll tell them,” Joy said just before Riley’s eyes opened.

When in the middle of the day all the events had settled down, and everyone had a breathing moment while Riley’s history teacher droned on about Renaissance Art, Joy gathered the 4 other emotions around.

“Alright, so this may sound completely crazy, but I’ve been looking through long-term for the past two weeks in search of this.” Joy held out the slightly faded memory.

Fear jumped up. “Is that…!?”

“But it can’t be!” Anger said with his jaw dropped.

“Joy, why would you do that?” Disgust looked from the memory to Joy.

Joy replayed the memory, smiling at her favorite part.  “Sadness knows how to explain it better than I do.”

Sadness explained to the three emotions what the plan was, how she found the manual, and all the conditions she’s highlighted since.

When she explained the bit about losing the thought forever, Fear interrupted.

“No, no! It’s too dangerous! We could lose it forever!”

“But if we don’t try it might as well be lost!” Joy looked to the three stupefied emotions. “Come on, guys, Sadness knows the manuals inside and out! If she said there wasn’t a chance then we know there wouldn’t be one. I don’t care if it takes decades, let’s just try it!”

Disgust looked at Fear, then to Anger. The three seemed to come to a silent agreement.

“Alright, Joy,” Disgust held her hand up like she always does. “If you really think we can do it.”

“We can’t do anything but wait,” Fear chimed in.

“I’m okay with that!” Joy excitedly said as she placed the memory where she had placed it before. “Okay guys let’s finish this day off nice and strong!” Joy fluttered to the controls.

The four other emotions came as well, setting aside the thought for the moment.

* * *

A year had passed before Joy could even consider using the memory. Riley was packing up for college, it was a bittersweet moment as her and her father dug through all of the old memories in the garage. Riley came out of the house toward the van carrying 3 heavy boxes stacked on top of each other.

“Woah there Monkey!” Her father exclaimed as he grabbed the boxes before they fell. “This’ll make things a little easier.” Her father pulled up a rusted old wagon and set the boxes down on it.

Joy looked at her fellow emotions and jumped up and down. But just as quickly as the opportunity came up, Fear pulled Joy back from the memory. Joy, Fear, Anger, and Disgust looked at Sadness. Sadness flipped to a part in the manual she had been keeping on hand and showed it to the four emotions, shaking her hand.

“Nice try, Joy, today is just not the day,” Fear said as he placed a hand on Joy’s shoulder and smiled at her.

Joy replayed the memory she was now holding, and smiled a sad smile. “Right. Maybe it’ll be tomorrow!” Joy put the memory back and took in a deep breath. “Okay, we’d better finish today strong! Riley’s heading out tomorrow!”

“Oh, don’t forget Dad wants to take us to see a movie tonight!” Fear said as Joy bounced back to the controls.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t spill the popcorn again,” Disgust absently said as she powdered her face.

Sadness tugged on Joy’s dress. “Hey, don’t worry, it’ll happen.”

Joy smiled at Sadness’ big eyes, set aside her thought of the memory, and devoted herself to finishing the day.

* * *

5 years later, and Riley was finding herself as a young adult on a date at a carnival. Disgust was charmed beyond belief with the young boy, and Joy liked the handful of magic tricks he knew.

While the two were in line to ride the Ferris Wheel, a street vendor walked by selling all sorts of carnival goodies.

“Hey, hold our spot, I’ll get some cotton candy for you.” The handsome date smiled and Riley nodded.

“Oh goodie,” Joy started, “Riley loves cotton candy!” Joy had Riley smile as the young man paid the vendor. As the guy came back holding one stick of cotton candy, Joy practically hurdled herself from her chair to the memories that were kept on hand. She would have bounced back to the recall area had she not been slammed to the ground by a tiny red emotion.

“Joy it’s too dangerous!” Fear exclaimed as he ran to Joy and Anger.

“I know, I know, I just… I really want this to work,” Joy replied as Anger got off from her. Joy replayed the memory again, she hummed along to the song playing. She had a solemn moment to herself, thinking about the memory.

“Um, Joy? I hate to interrupt, but he’s trying to feed her,” Sadness helped Joy up. “We need you.”

“Right, yeah, okay.” Joy set the memory aside and made her way back to the controls. As Joy hit buttons and pushed a slider up, Riley giggled like a schoolgirl as the pink and blue treat prodded her. Even though Riley was laughing, however, Joy was sniffling.

“Don’t worry, Joy,” Disgust placed a hand on Joy’s shoulder.  “Maybe tomorrow is the moment.”

“Yeah, yeah it’s gotta happen sometime soon.” Joy rubbed her eyes on her sleeve and pushed a few more buttons.

* * *

10 years later, Riley has married the same man that took her to the carnival. She has been happily married for 4 years, and is expecting to expand her family by one in a few months. The happy couple was celebrating their 4 years of commitment by Dinner and a visit to the aquarium.

“Oh, hey! Riley!” The man holding Riley’s hand grinned. “By the time we have our baby girl, they’re gonna have dolphins in! Won’t that be great?”

Joy had just barely opened her mouth.

“No.” The four other emotions said before she could even spit out her thought.

* * *

3 years down the road, the memory has been played by Joy so often that fear once worried that she would break it. This was of course only when Joy had the chance. Often all the emotions were hard at work taking care of the young princess bouncing around on couches and commanding the kingdom’s foreign affairs.

Riley in this moment was carefully washing strawberries as her daughter tugged on the hem of Riley’s pants.

“Hm? Yes honey?” Riley looked down at the little girl with auburn hair.

“Um… I was wondering… If my friend could come on the picnic.” the tiny three year old mumbled out.

“Your friend? What’s your friend like?” Riley set the strawberries aside and picked up her playful bundle.

“He’s really big, and he’s a teddy bear! He shoots ice cream out of his hands and wears really silly pants!” The little girl used her hands to emphasize everything about her imaginary friend.

Riley chuckled and carried her daughter to the couch. Amongst all of the memories Joy kept on hand, one started to shine brighter than the others. Joy looked to Sadness, and Sadness nodded. Joy ran to the memories, picked up the one that she had repeated so often, and brought it to the very forefront of Riley’s mind.

Riley suddenly stopped chuckling, but still smiled as she brushed the hair out of her daughter’s face.

“You know, I had a friend like yours once. His name was Bing Bong, and he was part cat, part elephant.” Riley’s little girl’s eyes grew big and she jumped up and down on the couch.

“Your friend’s name was Bing Bong? That’s a funny name!”

“Well what’s your friend’s name?”

“Um… Turtle!”

The two silly girls’ giggling was stopped when Riley’s husband walked in. “Hey, Princess, wanna help me pack up the car for our picnic?”

The tiny girl jumped off the couch and ran outside, her dad right behind her. Riley wasn’t alone, however. She stood up to see eye to eye with her old pink friend.

“Hey Bing Bong,” Riley said as she smiled.

“Hey Monkey. It’s been a while,” Bing Bong playfully shoved Riley’s shoulder with his elephant snout. Riley chuckled and brushed her hair from her face

“Yeah, it sure has. I’m happy to see you again,” Riley smiled a sad sort of smile, as she remembered some of the times she and Bing Bong used to have.

“You’ve grown quite a bit, Monkey. You’ve even got a little monkey now,” Bing Bong said, glancing at the door.

“Yeah, she just named her new friend Turtle.”

“That’s quite a catch you got there. But there’s no way he’s made of cotton candy like I am,” Bing Bong straightened his Jacket.

Riley chuckled. “No, he’s not, Bing Bong. No one could ever replace you.”

In the headquarters of Riley’s mind, Joy was on the verge of exploding. She nearly burst all the emotion’s eardrums with her raucous singing of “Who’s your friend who likes to play?” And if you were inside Riley’s mind, you could hear singing back all the way from imagination land: “Bing Bong! Bing Bong!”

After 19 years of waiting and waiting, Joy was finally able to reunite with an old friend.

****  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ~Author's note~ 
> 
> Eheh... Hi. It's been a while since I've posted any fanfiction anywhere, so tell me what you guys think? When did you catch on to what Joy's plan was?
> 
> It honestly was made for a friend of mine, because, well, she loves Bing Bong, and I dunno... I wanted to bring Bing Bong back to life for her.


End file.
